Everybody Didn’t Do It: Clinton Administration is in a Class by Itself on Damaging Security Practices
(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration’s damage-limitation strategy in response to
revelations about its failure to safeguard U.S. nuclear secrets from Chinese espionage — namely,
that other presidencies have had such problems, too — has begun to unravel as scrutiny of the
relevant facts has intensified. In particular, a succession of former officials and independent
analysts have now established that the current administration departed from past
practice
significantly, notably by turning a blind eye to Chinese efforts to penetrate the U.S.
government and economy and by punishing government employees who have sought to
protect American interests.1
The latter aspect was powerfully underscored in an op.ed. article which appeared in
yesterday’s
edition of the Wall Street Journal (see the attached).
It was authored by a former Reagan
Administration official, Michael Ledeen, who is currently a Resident Scholar
at the American
Enterprise Institute. Mr. Ledeen describes how President Reagan’s administration expected —
and elicited — enormous help in preventing the flow of high-technology to Communist regimes
“from professional civil servants, particularly in the military.” He added that: “It would have
been unthinkable for those experts to have been silenced or coerced into lying about matters that
directly affected national security. Yet, this has happened repeatedly during the Clinton
years, as some recently uncovered documents show.” (Emphasis added.)
Enter Jonathan Fox
As Mr. Ledeen notes, a case in point is that of Jonathan Fox, an attorney
specializing in arms
control on the staff of what was, until recently, called the Defense Special Weapons Agency. 2
Mr. Fox ran afoul of the Clinton party line when he wrote a memorandum opposing the
President’s certification that China was no longer proliferating nuclear weapons technology.
According to Mr. Ledeen, “Mr. Fox’s memo argued against the agreement on these grounds:
- “It ‘presents real and substantial risk to the common defense and security
of both the
United States and allied countries.’
- “It ‘can result in a significant increase of the risk of nuclear weapons technology
proliferation.’
- “‘The environment surrounding these exchange measures cannot guarantee timely
warning
of willful diversion of otherwise confidential information to non-nuclear states for nuclear
weapons development.’
- “There was no guarantee that the nuclear information would be limited to
non-military
applications in China itself.”
Such a presidential certification that effectively found that none of these to
be the case was
required by law before the United States could embark upon commercial nuclear cooperation
with the PRC. 3
Political appointees in Mr. Fox’s
chain of command gave him the option of
changing his memo or losing his job. In the end, the memo was rewritten to suit the
Administration’s needs for an undeserved Pentagon seal-of-approval. It was not
signed in that
form by Jonathan Fox, however.
As Mr. Ledeen points out, this is not an isolated case:
- “Mr. Fox is not the only weapons expert in the government to have been instructed to
lie or remain silent about the true consequences of sending military technology to
China. Notra Trulock and his colleagues were told by their superiors at the
Department of Energy that they should stop annoying people with accounts of Chinese
espionage at Los Alamos. Similarly, professionals in the Pentagon such as Michael
Maloof and Peter Leitner 4
were told to keep quiet about the approval of high-tech
licenses that would strengthen Chinese military power. Both of them spoke out;
others remain silent.
- “But even when the professionals stick by their principles, their superiors
have chosen to substitute facts with politically expedient disinformation. On
at least two occasions, military experts who argued against high-tech exports to
China later discovered that their recommendations had been altered in the
Pentagon’s computerized data base.”
The Actual Record
“Disinformation” also describes efforts by Clinton Administration officials — notably,
Secretary
of Energy Bill Richardson — to suggest that the real problems with security took place
on the
watches of previous Presidents. In fact, as Investor’s Business Daily reported on 9
June 1999:
“The declassified version of the House [Cox Committee] report identifies 11 cases of
Chinese
espionage since the late 1970s. Eight took place during President Clinton’s years in office. Two
of the three prior cases were first learned in 1995 and 1997. In other words, the vast majority of
the leaks over the past 20 years have sprung on Clinton’s watch and nearly all the old leaks have
shown up then. That’s not all.
“The House report doesn’t disclose the full extent of Chinese espionage in the Clinton years.
Citing ‘national security’ reasons, the White House censured nearly 375 pages, including several
recent cases. At least 24 times, the declassified version of the report states: ‘The Clinton
administration has determined further information cannot be made public.’ Left out are details
about Chinese espionage that took place in the ‘mid-1990s’ or ‘late 1990s.’
“‘Some of the most significant thefts occurred in the last four years,’said Rep. Chris Cox,
R-Calif., who headed the House panel.”
The Bottom Line
Conscientious government officials like Messrs. Fox, Maloof and Leitner, who were
properly
lauded by Mr. Ledeen and others he did not mention by name (notably, Ed
McCallum, a retired
lieutenant colonel in Army special operations who, in his capacity as DOE’s Director of
Safeguards and Security, has been warning for years about the Clinton Administration’s malign
neglect of basic security procedures at the Department of Energy 5
) have a critical role to play in
a real, and urgently needed, national damage-limitation strategy.
Congress must ensure that
they are given political protection against further retribution by the Clinton Administration.
More important still, these patriots must be given a platform from which they can
help to
identify the full extent of the Clinton team’s malfeasance with respect to physical,
information and personnel security matters and to direct corrective actions. An ideal approach to
providing such a vehicle would be the creation of a Select Committee of the
Senate imbued
with the same authority and access to information and resources as the counterpart Cox
Committee had in the House to whose staff such individuals might be temporarily detailed. At a
minimum, they should be given ample opportunities to testify before this or other relevant
committees of the Congress.
1
See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
China’s Nuclear Theft, Strategic Build-up Underscore Folly of Clinton
Denuclearization, C.T.B. (No. 99-D 31, 8 March
1999) and
Campaigns Clinton Legacy Watch # 41: Security Meltdown at
D.O.E. (No. 99-D 48, 26 April
1999).
2
See Broadening the Lens: Peter Leitner’s
Revelations on ’60 Minutes,’ Capitol Hill Indict
Clinton Technology Insecurity (No. 98-D
101, 6 June 1998).
3
See the Casey Institute Perspective entitled
The Big Lie: Long-term U.S. Interests Will Not
Be Served By Presidential Misrepresentation Of Chinese Proliferation Acts (
October 1997).
4
See Profile In Courage: Peter Leitner Blows The
Whistle On Clinton’s Dangerous Export
Decontrol Policies (No. 97-P 82, 19
June 1997), Profile in Courage: Mike Maloof Speaks
Truth to Power about Clinton’s Dangerous Tech Transfers to China (
November 1998) and S.O.S. — Save Our Submarines: Latest Revelation About
Chinese
Espionage Underscores Need to Retain Full Trident Force (
5
See Saving Lieutenant Colonel
McCallum (No. 99-D 64, 1 June 1999).
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